A question I was asked this morning in my email, is one I think many believers have. If you want to look over my shoulder, here it is.

This would take a few thousand words to answer completely, and I don’t think I can pull that off just now….

Suffice it to say that Father’s discipline for his children is not retribution or punishment like we often think of it. Father’s discipline is training. He doesn’t add to our pain to make a point, he tries to help us learn how to bend to his ways. I think of it like the vines I used to tie in my father’s vineyard. We’d have to bring them up to the wire and gently wrap them. But you could hear the canes struggle to get there against their desire to be unrestricted. Now, I know they don’t feel pain, but training them to bear fruit does stress them, especially where they are unyielding. So his discipline is usually unpleasant for us, but it is in hopes of transforming us more into his image, not in punishing us for our failures. There’s a huge difference there.

I used to fear God’s discipline too, but I don’t any more. The only reason I was afraid of his discipline is because I was afraid of him. I thought of God in religious ways that were unworthy of him. As God has shaken those out of my life, I find myself with joy yielding to his training. I want to be more like him. And I know that he knows how weak I am, how easily I am lured by the flesh, and he doesn’t hate me for it, but wants to work in me to displace the power of sin. Just because I stand fully justified before him, doesn’t mean both of us aren’t aware of those things in my life that serve Wayne instead of the Father I love. We are justified so that the relationship is not impaired by those failures and he can come alongside us in our struggle against our own selfishness and teach us day by day how to live more freely in him. This is one of the greatest joys of redemption. We actually get to live in him as he transform us into his image.

Father’s discipline is not something we need to fear, but something we can embrace because we’re confident in who he is and what he wants to do in us. I love when Hebrews tells us to endure all hardship as discipline. He’s not saying it all is, or that God is creating difficult times for us, but that if we treat it like discipline we will know how to respond to him in it. Then our difficulties will actually work to transform us (Seep Romans 5 here) to be more like him and this freer to live in the world with his joy. There’s more about this in my book, In My Father’s Vineyard , especially the sections on summer and winter if you have it.

Ask God to show you how much he loves you and then you won’t fear his discipline but be blessed by it. That is the point of the Hebrews 12 passage, isn’t it?

Steve’s comment to my last blog incited some further thoughts this weekend. He wrote:

I think you strike to the root of why we find comfort in religious systems. They allow us the illusion of control, just as the tree in the Garden of Eden did. They also allow us to fashion God in our own image and make us comfortable in how we live it. The only problem is they don’t work. People that are honest about that get ostracized and many more go along pretending, thinking they must be the problem, not the system. Either way people end up frustrated.

Religious systems also are great for controlling others, if you’re at the top. We have inherited an unspoken ethos from institutional religion that if we are not protected by tradition, obligation, ritual or leaders we will fall into error. But what happens when our traditions, obligations, rituals and/or leaders fall into error? It only took the Galatians a decade to fall away from the simplicity and power of God leading them to embrace all four of those things. And they left the Galatians dead spiritually, because none of those things can create the life that really is life.

But perhaps the major surface reason we have an expanding array of models to implement is that this is the best way to sell your ideas in the world, and to the body of Christ. Quick-fix, how-to books are the bane of our culture. It doesn’t matter if they don’t work. It only matters that people think they will long enough to buy the book or enroll in the course. And when they don’t work they can be blamed for not implementing it exactly right.

I can’t tell you how many people have told me over the years that I need to fashion a replicatable model for church life, create a new term for it, and write the book. That’s the way to make a living from writing and be significant in whatever movement I choose to land. What’s more, I know they’re right. But I’ve implemented all of my models and found out that while they could create an illusion of life over which I had a measure of control, they were useless in bearing the fruit of the kingdom. While it would sell well, it wouldn’t serve Jesus’ work in the world.

I used to get angry at those who marketed their latest religious systems. I thought it was righteous indignation, until Jesus made it clear I was only jealous that others got to do what I couldn’t. I don’t any more. What Sara and I have come to live in the last five years is better than any financial security I’d achieve by selling a boatload of books. I’d rather walk around with keys that set people free to live in God’s reality than lock them into prison cells of obligation and ritual. I’d rather live out where the waters flow deep, where God makes himself known in a variety of ways as suits his purpose among a group of people, than shape them with a cookie-cutter that divides and wounds the body of Christ. And I’d rather be an unknown whisper in someone’s ear to follow to the fullest what God has put in their heart than to speak at the largest convention of so-called church experts.

This is life, not a job! This is reality, not an excuse for books sales! This is his kingdom, not a tool to build my own.

Sara and I just returned from Pismo Beach (left), our special get-away spot on the California Coast. It was only three days, but it was the only all-alone time we’ve been able to find this summer and Sara goes back to work on Monday. So it was a bit late and way too short, but we had three uninterrupted days together, which were awesome! I’m now putting the finishing touches on a new BodyLife that will be out Monday if all goes well.

On Tuesday night our Galatians group stumbled across a wonderful quote. In answer to the question of what purpose the law had if it was unable to make us perfect, Paul answered:

Most people read Galatians, thinking Judaism was the problem. I think Eugene Peterson gets it exactly right through out his whole translation. Judaism wasn’t the problem, religion was. Any system of rules and obligations will not produce the life of God because it depends on human response, not God’s action in response to his promise

So why isn’t that obvious to everyone?

In our day religious systems proliferate like horny rats. People just get out of one and start looking for another. When that one disappoints yet again they look for another. And seemingly there is no end of people willing to devise them thinking that they have finally stumbled on the system that will better all other systems. I’ve been on that road. It’s crazy. Paul is right, not one of them can create the life of God.

I love the conclusion one brother made in an email that will appear in the new issue of BodyLife:

It’s not that some of those things can’t be useful tools to help us see God’s hand working in our lives, but as a methodology to recapture New Testament community they are destined to fail. The law was meant to end our dependence on any religious system. If God’s own didn’t work, what hope do we have of implementing our own, as well thought out as they might be? As Kevin Smith from Australia likes to say, “Jesus didn’t leave us with a system, but with his Spirit. When that becomes obvious to us we’ll be ready to live as the church instead of trying to build an unreasonable facsimile thereof.

After posting my last blog, I ran across some quotes via Rob Lane’s blog. They are both taken from John Eldredge’s book, Waking the Dead and are worth repeating here:

What a great reminder. If we don’t take community seriously, it just isn’t going to happen. We cannot produce it by our own strength, but neither can we sit passively by and hope it shows up for us. We cooperate with God’s working in us as we build look for ways to experience the vitality and joy of New Testament community.

Over the past few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time around my parents home due to my dad’s surgery. That put me near a whole group of people that Sara and I used to fellowship with when we first got out of college and in the years that followed. And even though a lot of that fellowship was around institutional machinery that I wouldn’t put the same time and effort in today, we all marveled at the relationships we had found with each other during those years.

Thirty years later we can pick up with those people exactly where we left off. The connection in Christ, compassion for each other and desire to share God’s life has survived the distance and miles that grew between us. What a joy it was to connect with these relationships again and share where the journey has taken us.

One of the things that many of them shared is that they no longer had relationships like these. Even though many of them are still a part of that same institution, and helping with leading in it, it has grown and changed over time. Many of them no longer connect with each other because they are too worn out with the program. When I asked if new people coming found their way into the kind of relationships we had back then, I was told it was just too big for that. One of the couples even reminded me how we’d been discouraged from the fellowship times we spent together because they weren’t part of the sanctioned program.

We certainly miss something when helping people build authentic relationships is lost to preserving an institution. People always hope one will spawn the other, but it never does. The priorities of an institution will eventually run counter to the priorities of family. Sara and I have been grateful that wherever we have been God has helped us build enduring friendships with brothers and sisters. We look back over our lives and celebrate the heritage of deep friendships that we have enjoyed at every stage of our journey. Some span 30 years, others ten; still others have only begun in the last couple of years.

But these kind of relationships offer the truest joy of sharing life in Father’s family. The time you invest today in building relationships with others on this journey will be fruit you can feast on over a lifetime. If our life together doesn’t build those kinds of friendships, what good is it? We have to remember not to get so caught up in the affairs of this world that we don’t take time to intentionally build friendships with people God puts in our paths.

Our Galatians group was together last night after a long time of missing each other with various trips, commitments and surgeries over the summer. It was good to be together again. Picking up in Galatians 3 last night we came across this jewel:

People who take it upon themselves to do something for God will find themselves often working against his very purpose in their own lives. What we seek to do for him is usually based on our agenda or our best wisdom. Paul offers us something so much different here. Instead of trying to do what we think God wants, let’s live by embracing what God arranges for us each day. God is in the simplest, most immediate details of our life, inviting us to him and wanting to show us how to live free in the midst of life as it comes at us.

God will put things in our path today. By entering into his work we will find the fruitfulness of the kingdom. But if we are too set on our agenda, we’ll walk right over the things that God is doing and never even know it.

A few months ago a wonderful brother of mine, Dave Aldrich, a graphic artist from Massachusetts sent me the picture below that he had taken recently, embellished by a brief verse he had written. Seeing it on my desktop over the last few weeks has reminded me over and over again to push away from the things that scream for my attention and allow my thoughts and mind to focus on my Incredible Father, tell him how much he means to me and listen for anything that might be on his heart for me. Even if it is just a moment turning away from my computer when I’m in the office, a pause when I take the garbage can out to the street, or some quiet minutes in the car before I turn on the radio or CD, I have been wonderfully refreshed in my awareness of God’s presence.

It also reminds me to take those longer periods of hiking in the woods or sitting in the back yard with my Bible and being still enough to know that He is God! The busyness of this world and its endless chores just needs to be put aside now and then so that we can steal away to the quiet where God so simply and freely makes himself known.

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psa. 46:10

This morning as I was reading through some email that had gathered over the weekend, I came across this bit of insight. The brother who wrote it is going through a difficult time finding the freedom in body life that he is looking for. In the midst of that he shared this incredible picture:

Or, we’re listening but, as you say it just takes time for us to see him clearly. I find this is often true of how God makes his direction known to me. I see bits and pieces of things over time, but the understanding of it all escapes me. As I just keep going down the journey with him suddenly all the pieces fall in place, or in your words, the stone finally sinks in. That’s the moment of clarity when we can step forward confident in God’s direction.

Many will say that’s when God spoke to them, but he was speaking all along. It’s just that it may take us a bit to focus in as well as it may take God a bit to bring all the pieces into place. Either way, he is committed to making his word clear to us as we continue to walk with him.

And I am all the more blessed by God’s amazing patience and graciousness.

It’s always a wonderful reminder for me to spend some time among some people who meet in a conventional setting and yet live the life of the kingdom. I’ve been with my dad and mom over the last week helping them through my Dad’s open-heart surgery and some of his recovery. (He is doing incredibly well, by the way and it was a real blessing to see him get back his sense of humor and a lot of his strength before Sara and I had to head home.)

They are part of a more traditional congregation at least in the forms they use. That group of believers is almost a fourth of the population of the mountain community in which they reside. Though they do a lot of things in conventional ways, including Sunday services and vacation Bible schools, I love most the relational life they share together. During their Sunday gatherings they provide plenty of open time for people to share what they are learning, where they need prayer and how God has moved in their lives.

What I like most is how much they care for each other all week long. When my dad had surgery there must have been 25 people in the waiting room with my mom. Throughout the week they continued to show up at the hospital and at their home offering whatever assistance we needed. These weren’t people assigned to ‘hospital visitation’, but those with whom my parents have become good friends since moving to the area 12 years ago. Watching my parents brighten up whenever someone came through the door was demonstration enough of the relationships they share.

The congregation has a heart that goes far beyond their own program or needs. When a local child needed a special restroom the local school district had no funds to provide, instead of suing the district they got together and built the restroom for them. The man they call their pastor is unconventional to say the least. He was a construction contractor among that fellowship before he agreed to take his present task. He’s not on any kind of power trip, except to see God’s power change lives. He doesn’t lord over people, but serves them with all God has given him. Little of his time goes to maintaining the institutional machine. During the week you’re more likely to find him serving the community by intervening in the practical needs of others, most of which don’t attend the congregation and aren’t even believers yet. He’ll crawl into just about any situation with anyone and see what God will do to touch people. And he is a blessing to the wider body of Christ. Over the past few months he has helped crisis pregnancy centers throughout California get fitted with MRI equipment.

Whether they are walking together through a medical crisis, intervening with an alcoholic, sending people and money to help build up the church in an impoverished city in Mexico or serving each other or their community in some other practical way, they continually demonstrate the heart of Jesus by serving those in need and loving the people God puts in their path. For those of us who enjoy more relational forms of church life, it is good to remember that God shows up in all kinds of places. He is far less concerned with the form we use than whether or not we reflect his heart for others. I know many home groups that could learn a lot from their outward focus and willingness to serve others, as God would give them away without thinking what’s in it for them. Now that’s body life! And whether you find it in a group like this or with two or three over a cup of coffee, it’s worth celebrating. Unfortunately, it’s all too rare these days!

What a difference a few weeks can make. Here’s a bit of an exchange I had with a brother from back east. God had been doing a work in his heart that was drawing him closer to his Father, but at the same time he found himself increasingly isolated from the friends he used to share congregational life with. He was feeling lonely and desperate for fellowship.

In April he wrote me sharing how lonely he felt:

At the time I wrote him back:

It’s amazing what has happened sense. Over the last few days I’ve watched with joy as more of the story has unfolded. God has connected him with some wonderful people in his region of the country and is now bringing those connections closer:

Four months later and so much has changed. From the despair of loneliness to overwhelming gratefulness at that which God has provided. Sometimes it can really help for us to remember that on any given day we’re in the middle of a story. The last chapter has yet been written. The story will still unfold and God will have incredible things ahead that we can’t quite see today. In this process you’ll find yourself dying to your own agenda so that you can embrace God’s way of doing things. That’s where the life and joy of this kingdom reside, not in getting our wants fulfilled our way.

So, keep leaning into Jesus. Let him be enough for you and watch what he will unfold in his time.

In unrelated developments, we were able to bring my dad, home from the hospital today. He is continuing to heal in textbook fashion and for that we are grateful to God and those who have held him in your prayers. His story is still unfolding as well.